32 research outputs found
Be outraged: there are alternatives
Pushed to extremes, austerity is bad economics, bad
arithmetic, and ignores the lessons of history. We, an
international group of economists and social scientists, are
outraged at the narrow range of austerity policies which are
bringing so many people around the world to their knees,
especially in Europe. Austerity and cutbacks are reducing
growth and worsening poverty. In our professional opinions,
there are alternatives â for Britain, Europe and all countries
that currently imagine that government cutbacks are the
only way out of debt. The low-growth, no-growth trap
means that the share of debt in GNP falls ever more slowly,
if at all. It may even rise â as it has in some countries
The Concept of Governance in the Spirit of Capitalism
Through combining insights from political economy and sociology, this article explains the early genesis of the policy notion of governance in relation to ideological changes in capitalism. Such an approach has tended to be neglected in existing conceptual histories, in the process, undermining a sharper politicization of the term and how it became normalized. The argument dissects how the emergence of governance can be understood in light of a relationship between political crises, social critique and justificatory arguments (centered around security and justice claims) that form part of an ideological âspirit of capitalismâ. Through a distinctive comparison between the creation of âcorporate governanceâ in the 1970s and the formulation of a âgovernance agendaâ by the World Bank from the 1980s, the article elucidates how the concept, within certain policy uses, but by no means all, can reflect and help constitute a neoliberal spirit of capitalism
Macrosocial determinants of population health in the context of globalization
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55738/1/florey_globalization_2007.pd
Food Price Volatility over the Last Decade in Niger and Malawi: Extent, Sources and Impact on Child Malnutrition
Recently, considerable attention has rightly been paid to the nutritional impact of the sharp
hikes in international food prices which took place in 2007-8 and, again, in 2010-11. While sacrosanct,
this growing focus has somewhat obscured the effect of other factors which do affect malnutrition in
the Sub-Saharan Africa context, i.e. the long term impact of agricultural policies, huge and persistent
seasonal variation in domestic food prices, and the impact of famines which still regularly stalk the
continent. This paper focuses on the relative weight of these factors in explaining child malnutrition
(proxied by the number of child admissions to feeding centers) in Malawi and Niger, two prototypical
countries in the region. The analysis shows that the drivers of domestic food staple prices and of the
ensuing child malnutrition have to be found not only â or not primarily â in the changes of
international food prices but mainly in the impact of agricultural policies on food production, the
persistence of a strong food price seasonality, and recurrent and often poorly attended famines.
Indeed, even during years of declines in international food prices, these factors often exert a huge
upward pressures on domestic food prices and child malnutrition